


Still a Punk and a Jerk

by gth694e



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, M/M, Steve cuts Bucky's hair, Tumblr Prompt, quick one shot, some very minor pining, this takes place sometime after Cap 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-21
Updated: 2014-09-21
Packaged: 2018-02-18 05:21:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2336678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gth694e/pseuds/gth694e
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve Rogers cuts Bucky Barnes' hair and the two discuss how they are not the same men they were before the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still a Punk and a Jerk

**Author's Note:**

> [a-long-way-from-here](http://www.a-long-way-from-here.tumblr.com) asked me to write a fic of, "Steve telling Bucky about how he was before Hydra."
> 
> This perhaps didn't turn out like either of us expected, but it's what I wrote. :)
> 
> This is unbeta'd, so all errors are definitely my own.

Steve brushed his fingers through Bucky’s hair. The other man sat motionless on the stool before the bathroom mirror. Bucky had changed so much—new scars, new experiences, and a new arm, but his silky soft hair was the same it had always been, just longer.

“You did this for me Before?” Bucky broke the silence. Steve could practically hear the capitalization of the word. Before. Before the Winter Soldier. Before the war. Before Captain America.

“Yeah, Buck, I cut your hair,” Steve answered. He had loved cutting Bucky’s hair, since it was the only time it’d been acceptable to run his fingers through his silky locks. He had always been jealous of Bucky’s dames, and how they’d gotten to twine their fingers in his hair. Steve had wanted to do that. Twist his fingers in Bucky’s hair and pull the man’s head down towards him and kiss him.

He never did.

Steve picked up the scissors off the counter. “How much do you want off?”

Bucky shrugged. “How did I wear it Before?”

Steve hesitated, looking into the mirror in front of him, trying to meet Bucky’s gaze. But the other man was staring down at his hands. “Buck, you know…” How did he say it? God, what did he even mean to say? “You know you don’t have to be who you were, Before. I’m not who I was Before. We’ve both changed. And that’s okay.”

For a moment Bucky was silent and unmoving. And God, that was one thing about Bucky that hadn’t changed. Steve had always been the one chatting more than was good for him, the one with a mouth that ran a mile a minute, jumping into scrapes without thinking about the consequences, constantly moving for fear that if he stopped he might never start up again.

Compared to him Bucky had always been downright quiet. And Bucky’s ability to be still had been one of the many reasons he had made such a great sniper. If now those qualities were more exaggerated, well, it wasn’t that they weren’t there before.

“You wear your hair different,” Bucky said, his eyes finally glancing up. “From Before. So maybe I should too?”

“Yeah, Buck, that’s a good idea,” Steve said with an encouraging smile.

“Maybe…maybe just a trim?”

“Great idea,” Steve said, picking up the scissors again, running a hand over Bucky’s soft locks.

Silence fell again, only broken by the snipping of the scissors. Steve concentrated on making sure Bucky’s hair was even, that he didn’t take off too much.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve didn’t look up from his task.

“You said I’m not the same, that you’re not the same as Before. If we’re not the same…how do we know….” His voice trailed off.

“How do we know what?” Steve stopped cutting, meeting Bucky’s gaze in the mirror.

“How do we know we’re still them?” Bucky asked. “Steve and Bucky. What if…what if we’re not them anymore at all? What if we’re just Captain America and the Winter Soldier? And Steve and Bucky both died in the ice?”

Steve smiled, dropping one of his hands to the back of Bucky’s neck and squeezing in a way that never failed to relax the tension in Bucky’s shoulders, whether it was 1935 or 2015.

“You’ve asked me that before,” Steve said. “During the war. When I rescued you from Zola’s lab and after you’d seen me as Captain America for the first time. You said we were both lab rats. How could we know either of us was the same man, and that we hadn’t actually died in the lab and been replaced by some lab experiment designed to look like the men we had been before.”

“What did you tell me?” Bucky asked.

“That maybe it was true.” Steve started snipping at Bucky’s hair again. “That maybe Steven Grant Rogers died that die in the lab, and maybe I was a new soul sent to replace him and maybe you were too. All I knew was that I still cared about you and I still cared about the war and all the things that Steve Rogers cared about. And maybe I wasn’t that kid from Brooklyn anymore, but I was still fighting Steve Rogers’ fight and if there was one thing we both knew about Steve Rogers it was he never backed down from a fight.”

“What did I say?”

“That I was a punk.”

Bucky fell silent, and Steve backed away, eyeing his handwork. It was even and about two inches shorter. Still long, still the new Bucky. And Steve liked it. He brushed Bucky’s shoulders, trying not to let his hands linger. “There,” Steve said. “What do you think?”

“That you’re still a punk.” Bucky met his eyes in the mirror, and yeah they didn’t twinkle like they used to but they were still the same dark blue eyes.

“Jerk,” Steve answered, and a hesitant smile quirked Bucky’s lips.

Maybe they weren’t the same people. The war had changed them. The ice had changed them. Everything had changed them. But they were still a punk and a jerk.

And maybe that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, you guys can find me on [tumblr.](http://www.mandyp12.tumblr.com)


End file.
